The lines above indicate the principal measure that should absolutely be followed by the government. But there are open options for them as well. In these open options there are economical decisions that can influence the future of newspapers. For instance they could offer the press some fiscal reduction because that type of business serves an interest useful to the community. If they can have an economical advantage over other business sectors that are strictly profit oriented it would help them survive in particular in difficult times.
In the same pattern of measures the government could intervene more often through the concurrence commission regarding the processes of concentration in the Swiss media. Because obviously it is a problem that should be avoided: “excessive media concentration can endanger media pluralism (the presence of a number of different and independent voices) and also diversity in the media (different political opinions and representations of culture within the media). Therefore a pluralistic, competitive media system is a prerequisite for media diversity”(60). In Switzerland the recent example of the merger between Edipresse and Tamedia illustrates a process in which the large groups of press are becoming bigger and there are less of them. With these tendencies comes the problem of concentration because if newspapers belong to the same editor often their contents will be similar, in particular in the Swiss regional press. That obviously goes against the pluralism of contents that was recommended during the forum in Fribourg by many speakers. Thus the government could have a special attention in the future to assure that such transactions between groups of press do not have a repercussion on the contents that are offered after the connection.
An additional decision that has to be carefully studied by the government is the question of the advertising on the SRG SSR idée suisse web sites. For many editors allowing that would be a huge blow for the newspapers, because they would now face sites that draw a lot of public and advertisers would evidently consider switching their budget from the newspapers websites to the ones of the SRG SSR idée suisse. And since the SRG SSR idée suisse already receives money from the state directly through the license fees, editors consider that it would not be fair to allow them to have that additional advantage over them. Again the government has to think about all the implications such a decision would have.
60 Isosfidis, p.110